More on Dunta Robinson and the Texans cornerbacks

Dunta Robinson has been a corner for the Texans since 2004. During this time, he missed 12 games due to one injury.

There’s been a ton of discussion about what the Texans might look like without Robinson, and I thought you might want to see some charting data that managing editor Bill Barnwell of Football Outsiders has on the Texans DB position. So here’s our conversation on the subject:

Dunta Robinson’s contributions.

Steph: Big topic among Texan fans is what the effect of losing Dunta Robinson will have on the Texans secondary.

Cons of him leaving:

Losing an experienced corner in a QB driven league

Young corners who remain won’t get calls

Leader on defense

Some believe the Texans defense got better as DR got more playing time last season

Pros of him leaving:

His individual numbers do not resemble his salary

He had the same number of interceptions as I did last year–zero

He might even be the worst corner for the Texans

Encourages the Texans to upgrade that roster spot with someone younger, better.

Some say that he was matched up against the best wide receivers all year, but I do not have charting data so I cannot say. Your thoughts?

Bill: I can sorta see both sides of the argument. I agree that Robinson probably wasn’t worth what he was paid (or was going to be paid), but I also think there’s something to be said for having a reasonably good corner and being able to pencil him in on one side of the lineup. As he leaves, unless they draft or acquire an effective replacement, everyone has to move up a level, and that can expose guys who otherwise might look effective in limited roles. (It would help if Fred Bennett renewed his lease with the devil from his rookie year.)

As for the issue of Robinson covering #1 guys, it actually looks from our data that he did spend more time on the other team’s top receiver than any other player. I went through all the passes we have charted with Robinson in coverage to see which receivers were targeted, and where they stood on their team’s depth chart at the time (as an example, I’d suggest that Torry Holt was the Jags’ #1 target in Week 3, but by the time Week 13 rolled around, Mike Sims-Walker was clearly their top wideout). Here’s the breakdown of how Robinson’s targets were split by receiver type:

#1 Wideout: 42

#2 Wideout: 21

Other Wideout: 5

Running Back: 4

Tight End: 1

It’s pretty clear to see from the week-by-week target data who Robinson was most responsible for covering. Some weeks, it was impossible to tell, but it was usually reasonable to say that 4 out of 5 Robinson targets came on throws to ______, so that was Robinson’s primary focus. That list of receivers:

Week 1: Jerricho Cotchery

Week 2: Justin Gage

Week 3: Torry Holt

Week 4: Louis Murphy

Week 5: Larry Fitzgerald

Week 6: Chad Ochocinco

Week 7: Unclear

Week 8: Unclear

Week 9: Reggie Wayne

Week 10: bye

Week 11: Kenny Britt

Week 12: Reggie Wayne

Week 13: Torry Holt

Week 14: Unclear

Week 15: Donnie Avery

Week 16: Unclear

Week 17: Randy Moss

That’s a list of guys who were, at the time in question, pretty much their respective team’s top wideout. The only guys I could say definitely wasn’t was Holt in Week 13.

A comparison of the Texans secondary players.

Steph: Do you have any numbers on how Robinson did relative to the rest of the Texans’ corners in 2009? There’s numbers floating on the interwebs (Pro Football Focus) that make Robinson look very poor.

Bill: Alright. So first, here are the numbers for all the corners.

Player Targets YPA Success Rate

Dunta Robinson 71 7.2 46%

Glover Quin 67 6.9 54%

Jacques Reeves 43 5.9 58%

Bernard Pollard 32 4.5 59%

Brice McCain 21 6.0 62%

Fred Bennett 21 6.8 43%

Dominique Barber 9 4.0 78%

Success rate there is a figure that should be as high as possible for the defense, so Robinson’s 46% is the worst amongst defensive backs for everyone besides Bennett. Then again, Robinson was facing the toughest competition on the team, so… this is why we provide those numbers and then let smart people who watch the team closely like you break them down.

As for Pro Football Focus — here’s the thing. I love the idea of what they do. Love it. The problem is that you can’t do anything they’re suggesting they can with any sort of comfortable reliability. If anyone could, we’d have started doing it when we started the charting project four years ago.

The player participation is impossible to do. I’m not sure what sort of TV you have for road games — I have a nice, fancy, 54″ plasma that allows me to see a lot of things clearly — but I can’t see every player on every play. On some plays, I can see every player. On others? I can hardly tell who’s who. I can’t tell which linemen are on the field on offense or defense. I can’t tell which linebackers on the field, which backs are in the backfield, and — most obviously — who’s at safety. I can guess, of course, based upon the starters and who’s healthy, but I don’t know.

The grading thing is even more spurious. NFL teams don’t chart other team’s stuff like the way they’re suggesting they do, because you can’t do it with anything close to reliability. Take a typical run play. Let’s say the center’s job is to chip the defensive tackle, get to the second level, and take out a linebacker. In reality, he doubles on the defensive tackle and it looks like he’s done an effective job of sealing the tackle, but the tackle doesn’t let him get off and the linebacker makes the play. How do you grade that? Do you give the center a good score? How can you know what he was supposed to be doing?

It gets even sillier when things start moving down the field — how do you grade a route when you can’t see a receiver cut? How can you grade a safety when the safety never appears on the screen? It’s just absurd. If you make 100 guesses about what’s happening on a play, and you get 15 of them right and 85 of them wrong, even if you mean well, you’re doing the concept of charting a disservice.

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Thanks again to Bill for helping Texan fans with a bit of a fix. I don’t think it provides us A Definitive Answer, because as someone who has watched all the Texans games, I don’t think there is one.

On one hand, I think there are few people who believe that the Texans are a better team without Dunta Robinson. For example, just because Glover Quin had a nice rookie 2009 doesn’t mean he will have a nice 2010. See e.g. Fred Bennett.

On the other hand, I think that there are few people who believe that Robinson is worth a second year of the franchise tag or what he would demand (and likely receive) in a UFA deal. $12 million dollars for one year.

Rick Smith said it was a tough decision not to tag Robinson, and I have no doubt about that. GMs, like businessmen and all of us at times, often need to make the better choice out of bad choices.

I can’t say I feel good with a lineup of the current crop of defensive backs + even a very good rookie for 2010. In other words, after this move, and possibly losing Kevin Walter, I sure hope there’s a better plan in the works other than just “reload in the draft.”

The Texans already are a young team on defense which probably has contributed to their slow starts where young players are making mistakes, and the defense isn’t used to playing together. Making the defense younger when they were already pretty young makes me a little queasy.

And if they start off the season poorly without Robinson, there’s no guarantee that they would be any better with him. You can never know alternative history.